Publications

In business, difficult decisions are made every day. They can be at any level, effect a few or many people, require immediate action or a delayed response. In the end, those affected by the result of the difficult decision may be able to understand where it’s coming from, but that doesn’t make the situation any easier for them. As a leader, the way you manage the delivery of this decision can contribute to your brand, your future workforce, and your growth and productivity following these changes. If you have never experienced this type of situation personally, here are some strategies that may be useful.

There are many twists and turns that a career path takes. Each new responsibility, each new team, each new challenge leads to new skills, new relationships, and fresh opportunities. These experiences, successes, and failures shape who we become professionally and is based on our own unique experiences.

What if everyone had to spend a year in a particular job? And what if that job was the kind of job that didn’t pay a guaranteed salary, and compensation was based solely on your success? What would you learn? How would you survive? And more importantly, how would the skills you learned shape the future of your career?

It may seem radical, but there is value in learning to survive and thrive, early in a professional career. And as challenging as some of those skills may seem, we do not doubt that they pay dividends in the long run: time management, strategy development, problem-solving, and especially overcoming fears. We all have parts of our jobs that we are “afraid” of; these are the things we don’t like to do or don’t feel confident doing. One of the most difficult things to do, for many people, is to pick up the phone, call a stranger, and ask a question. Think of how easy it has become to find just about anything we need from a quick Google search. From there, we can start a live chat or send an email, get what we need and never have to deal with a human. On the flip side of that, when we receive an email from an unknown source it’s very easy to ignore it, hit the delete button, or unsubscribe from a mailing list; all without speaking to a human.

The Walls of …

Productivity. Creativity. Inspiration. Implementation. Completion.

In business, we hit “walls” all the time. Although metaphorical, that doesn’t make them any less frustrating, intimidating, or challenging. Depending on your perspective though, those walls could become inspirational.

The walls are real and need to be dealt with to move from problem to solution. There is obviously no “right” way to deal with walls; a lot of that depends on the source of the wall and how much control one has over going through the wall, around the wall, or over the wall. Different types of walls require different types of strategies. The first thing to do is to recognize which walls are within our control, and which are not.

In a time of needing to get several things communicated quickly (email) or elicit a response immediately (texting) or stand out from the rest of the communication tools (messaging), it’s easy to forget about the value of face to face time. Yes, our time is precious. Yes, we are all multitasking, all the time. No, there are not enough hours in the day, but there never really have been. And while we have made it possible to walk around with a computer in our pockets, they have also made it very easy to step away from the thing that has connected people for thousands of years; face to face engagement.

In A Million Dollar Idea for Success in Business Andrise Bass, Ph.D., lays out the blueprint you need to take your business startup from idea to incorporation. Each chapter is broken down into simple, actionable chunks, which serves as a guide for new business owners looking to learn the basics. Bass uses her business development and entrepreneurship background to help you cross your dot your I’s and cross your T’s for a better startup.

What makes a company a “Super Company?” Do they even exist? IS it what we would think it is?

In a recently published Fast Company article, author, Stephanie Vozza, notes 5 “Super Skills” people need for jobs of the future. Not surprisingly, they are a Personal Brand, Digital Fluency, A Tribe, Making Sense of Complexity, and Resiliency. At PRISCON, we believe these skills not only apply to people, but to companies as well and they aren’t even in the future, but for now.

Creativity. Innovation. Problem Solving.

Each of these terms is very familiar to most people in the business world. Creativity is often left to the designers, advertising agencies and marketers. Innovation typically lives with engineers and developers. Problem-solving weaves its way through every department from Human Resources to Sales to Product Development to Customer Service. While the designers and product developers may see themselves as creative, we’re willing to bet that Human Resources, Sales and Customer Service likely don’t. We would wholeheartedly like to disagree and point to Design Thinking.

Gaining in popularity, the buzz-word has led to a myriad of options in online courses and professional training. But if you’re one of those people who sees the word design and runs for the hills because drawing a circle may as well be the equivalent to climbing the Empire State Building without ropes, it’s time to understand what Design Thinking really is an how it applies to business.

Amazon Inc. is a company located in Seattle, Washington and sells the bests of heterogeneous products. The company serves all the 50 states of the U.S.A alongside other 160 nations around the globe. Some of the products Amazon offers include electronic book readers, computer hardware and software, electronics, CD’s, DVD’s, housewares and among others that can be viewed by the customers on their online portal and other international websites. The company is guided by the vision of being a customer-centered and has built a forum where its customers can find and discover items they are interested in buying online (Amazon.com, 2018). The company’s Web services involve renting data storage and computing services through online cloud computing. Besides, the firm makes market-dominant Kindle e-book readers. The promotion of such devices has led to a drastic growth in its e-book publishing and has enabled Amazon to revolutionize the book-publishing sector.

Agility: The ability to move quickly and easily

When it comes to agility it’s easy to envision athletes, but what about businesses? With so many operational “moving parts” in a business, agility is not an expectation but more often, an exception.

Here at PRISCON, we believe agility is a necessity.

Agility allows for businesses to operate with flexibility, speed, strength, and creativity. Whether providing a service or a product, it’s important to recognize that as pillars of growth, business operations don’t live in a silo; they are very much tied to customers’ needs. And customers needs change regularly as a result of environment, culture, and technology. The ability for a company to be agile can determine the long-term success of a product, a service, and a brand.

Ethics are defined as a set of values and principles that guide a person in decision making as well as in their daily activities. An organizational code of ethics refers to the principles and values that govern the actions, decisions, policies, and programs. Ideally, organizations and corporations are continually viewed as moral agents tasked with the responsibility of proving proper conduct to the company’s stakeholders (“Good Governance Program”, 2004). In effect, it is imperative that businesses operate under specific laws and regulations to ensure that the employees of the company are guided on how to react and manage ethical issues, as well as understand the formal restraints in the company’s structure. On the other hand, it is also necessary that the managers of the company can determine the goals they seek to meet when they design an organizational ethics programs. Among the key attributes of such a program is that it should be action-oriented, specific, timely and relevant (“Good Governance Program”, 2004). Ideally, a good program is one that can achieve the desired organizational outcomes, as well as blend well with the needs of the organization. Therefore, the aim of this essay is to establish the importance of ethical programs in organizations.

It is imperative that each business is guided by a unique ethical character. Establishment of an ethical character emanates from the development of an effective, ethical program which seeks to foster appropriate risk management, compliance, promote the development of value-adding activities, as well as ensure better company reputation (“Good Governance Program”, 2004). Ideally, it is the core of business ethics goals to make sure that all these objectives as stated are achieved in the company. Further, an organization with an effective, ethical program relays that the company is a responsible business enterprise, with the capability to meet its responsibilities in the community it operates. Therefore, through the development of an effective, ethical program, a company can relay its social responsibility capacity, which in turn influences the general business outlook in the society. This is reflected in the company’s core values, core purpose, and possible future goals. Continue reading…